Pulling Billions Out of Equities Is the New Thing: Taking Stock

S&P futures have traded higher all morning, with impressive bounces in the global markets (China rose >2%, Europe up ~1%), though we’ve been fading since Axios reported that Trump is telling advisers that he wants the U.S. to withdraw from the WTO ("He’s [threatened to withdraw] 100 times"). The story goes on to say that his advisers do push back and a policy has never been put in place to take the idea seriously -- note that Mnuchin and Kudlow are both scheduled to appear on Fox Business shortly.

Banks are poised for a second-day relief rally, after thirteen straights days of losses for the XLF, with second round of stress tests (CCAR) now out of the way -- even Deutsche Bank, whose U.S. unit was the sole bank to fail, saw its shares climb over 4% in Frankfurt -- analysts seem to agree that the results were largely better than expected: